Part 6

Richard Henry Stoddard.

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Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter robe of purest white; ’Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits its evening ray, Earth’s universal face, deep-hid and chill, Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man.

Thomson.

Grace.

The Lord giveth Snow like wool.—Psalm 47:18.

Cold and dreary as winter is, it is not devoid of interest to the man of taste and Christian sentiment. Look at the delicate snow-flake. With what grace of motion has God endowed it! How childlike, gently, peacefully, confidingly the little creature comes down into our turbulent earth! It is not difficult to conceive that it comes as an attendant on some angel, whose movements it imitates.

Kirk.

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We have sat and watched the fall of snow until our head grew dizzy, for it is a bewitching sight to persons speculatively inclined. There is an aimless way of riding down, a simple, careless, thoughtless motion, that leads you to think that nothing can be more nonchalant than snow. And then it rests upon a leaf or alights upon the ground, with such a dainty step, so softly, so quietly, that you almost pity its virgin helplessness. If you reach out your hand to help it, your very touch destroys it. It dies in your palm, and departs as a tear.

Nowhere is snow so beautiful as when one sojourns in a good old-fashioned mansion in the country, bright and warm, full of home joy and quiet. You look out through large windows and see one of those flights of snow in a still, calm day, that make the air seem as if it were full of white millers or butterflies, fluttering down from heaven. There is something extremely beautiful in the motion of these large flakes of snow. They do not make haste, nor plump straight down with a dead fall, like a whistling rain-drop. They seem to be at leisure; and descend with that quiet, wavering, sideway motion which birds sometimes use when about to alight. You think you are reading; and so you are, but it is not in the book that lies open before you. The silent, dreamy hour passes away, and you have not felt it pass. The trees are dressed with snow. The long arms of evergreens bend with its weight; the rails are doubled, and every post wears a starry crown. The well-sweep, the bucket, the well-curb are fleeced over. And still the silent, quivering air is full of trooping flakes, thousands following to take the place of all that fall. The ground is heaped, the paths are gone, the road is hidden, the fields are leveled, the eaves of buildings jut over, and, as the day moves on, the fences grow shorter, and gradually sink from sight. All night the heavens rain crystal flakes. Yet, that roof, on which the smallest rain pattered audible music, gives no sound. There is no echo in the stroke of snow, until it waxes to an avalanche and slips from the mountains. Then it fills the air like thunderbolts.

Beecher.

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Falling snow is beautiful in a forest. It comes wavering down among the trees without a whisper, and takes to the ground without the sound of a footfall. Evergreen trees grow intense in contrasts of dark-green ruffled with radiant white. Bush and tree are powdered and banked up. Not the slightest sound is made in all the work which fills the woods with winter soil many feet deep. When the morning comes, then comes the sun also. The storm has gone back to its northern nest to shed its feathers there. The air is still, cold, bright. But what a glory rests upon the too brilliant earth! Are these the January leaves?—is this the winter efflorescence of shrub and tree? You can scarcely look for the exceeding brightness. Trees stand up against the clear, gray sky, brown and white in contrast, as if each trunk and bough and branch and twig had been coated with ermine, or with white moss. There is an exquisite airiness and lightness in the masses of snow on trees and fences, when seen just as the storm left them. The wind or sun soon disenchants the magic scene.

Ib.

The Snow-Storm.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems no where to alight; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And vails the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the house-mates sit Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north-wind’s masonry. Out of an unseen quarry, evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Carves his white bastions, with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door, Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage; naught cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall, Mauger the farmer’s sighs, and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic, in those structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.

R. W. Emerson.

The Spirit of the Snow.

The night brings forth the morn; Of the cloud is lightning born; From out the darkest earth the brightest roses grow; Bright sparks from black flints fly; And from out a leaden sky Comes the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.

The wondering air grows mute, As her pearly parachute Cometh slowly down from heaven, softly floating to and fro; And the earth emits no sound, As lightly on the ground Leaps the silvery-footed Spirit of the Snow.

At the contact of her tread, The mountain’s festal head As with chaplets of white roses seems to glow;

And its furrowed cheeks grow white, With a feeling of delight, At the presence of the Spirit of the Snow.

As she wendeth to the vale, The longing fields grow pale, The tiny streams that vein them cease to flow; And the river stays its tide, With wonder and with pride, To gaze upon the Spirit of the Snow.

But little does she deem The love of field or stream; She is frolicsome and lightsome as the roe; She is here and she is there; On the earth or in the air, Ever-changing, floats the Spirit of the Snow.

Now, a daring climber, she Mounts the tallest forest tree,— Out along the dizzy branches doth she go! And her tassels, silver-white, Down-swinging through the night, Mark the pillow of the Spirit of the Snow.

Now she climbs the mighty mast, Where the sailor-boy at last Dreams of home, in his hammock down below; There she watches in his stead, Till the morning light shines red, Then evanishes the Spirit of the Snow.

Or, crowning with white fire The minster’s topmost spire With a glory such as sainted foreheads show, She teaches fanes are given Thus to lift the heart to heaven, There to melt like the Spirit of the Snow.